“I’ll leave some clothes for you inside the door and package the drugs in something waterproof.”
What the hell? Jakob hung up my phone and walked out of the room, only slightly delaying the start of my interrogation. I found him in the master bathroom, opening a plastic shoebox filled with over-the-counter drugs.
“Planning on opening a pharmacy?”
He stopped, putting down the box he was opening to look me in the eye, suddenly serious. “I love you. I want my house to be your home, there’s food for you, and clothes, and if you ever need it medicine to heal you.”
I let my jaw hang open in surprise. “So you bought all this.” I gestured to the fifteen cardboard boxes, brand new cures for any stomach ailment, cold, fever, or ache a girl could have. “In case I got sick when I was here?”
“I’d like for you to be here more often. I keep trying to ask you but you always misunderstand, Mallory I—”
“You want me to move in?” I interrupted. I adored the way he could slip into flowery Victorian speech but I was too excited to wait. “You’re asking me to move in with you?”
For the tiniest second his face fell and I expected him to take it back, to tell me it was too soon, we should wait or something but then the expression was gone, replaced by a smile. “Are you saying yes?”
I jumped up to hug him, crossing the four or five steps to the sink where he was standing in one leap. Good thing he was strong enough to grab me and hold me there for a long deep kiss. I was moving in with Jakob. Wow.
Eight, no, nine months after I’d met him we were still in love, still crazy with lust when we saw each other but now we’d learned to work through things that bothered us. All of it was amazing, the most stable, positive relationship of my adult life, and now it was moving forward. I’d never expected this. Jakob was too Catholic to believe in cohabitating but he must have realized how much it meant to me. I had a sudden urge to say thank you in a more physical way.
I let my tongue slip a little farther into his mouth, exploring, while my hands reached to the waist of his silk pajamas. He hadn’t put on a shirt yet and I could feel his nipples harden underneath me. My kisses worked their way to his ear, gently nibbling the bottom of his delicate ear lobe in a way that always made him moan.
“Danny will be here in twenty minutes.”
“He couldn’t drive here that fast,” I whispered in his ear, my hands searching for the drawstring of his pants.
“He’s not driving, he’s swimming.”
“What?” I stopped, no more kisses, no more undressing. “It’s thirty degrees out, the river has chunks of ice floating in it. There’s absolutely no way a person could swim in it.”
“He won’t be swimming as a person.”
“Wait, you know? You know what Danny is? You’ve known all this time and you didn’t tell me?”
“You never asked.” He turned back to the boxes of pills.
The mood was gone but I didn’t mind; I had something much more important to find out. “I’m asking now, what is he? It’s some sort of shifter, right? Oh my God, is he a weredolphin? I thought that was it but…”
“No.” Jakob kissed me on the forehead. He’d assembled a neat pile of individual packages of pills, all of them waiting to go into a small capsule on a thin cord like I remembered wearing at the pool as a little kid.
“Well what? Is it a fairytale creature? I thought mermaid, merman for a while but he has kids, normal kids without tails, so not that. Tell me!” I demanded.
“He’s a selkie.”
I looked a Jakob dumbly.
“One of the Pooka? They turn from seal to man by shedding their coats. I’m sure I have some of the stories in the library, maybe even a movie left over from when Ronnie was young.”
Ronnie was Jakob’s adopted son. I’d spoken to him on the phone over the holidays, semi-meeting a man who was nine years older than me but called my boyfriend Dad. It was more than a little odd and I suspected would be a touch difficult to get used to. When I could think of Ronnie as a kid, perpetually ten years old it wasn’t a problem.
But then there was E, who had a huge crush on him when she was four, reminding me that Jakob had an extensive life before me. And yet somehow E bothered me in a different way than Ronnie did. Maybe because we’d become friends, while Ronnie was still Jakob’s kid from half a lifetime ago. Life could be strange that way.
Just like it was strange I’d been trying to solve the mystery of what Danny was for months and offhandedly, as if it were no big deal, Jakob did.
“How did you know?”
“I knew one once, during the war—”
“Which war?” With Jakob there were several.
“World War I,” he answered absently putting away bottles of medicine. “Danny hides extraordinarily well, but Emma feels exactly the way Oonagh did.”
“Oonagh?” I asked, trying out the pronunciation of the strange name. Jakob admitted to only a handful of women in his six hundred years. I was always on the lookout for gossip about them. As usual he was tight lipped. The only answer he gave me was a nod.
****
I sat on the couch waiting for Danny thinking about moving in with my man. Well okay, moving in with my vampire. There were a thousand things to consider, all the normal boring items: if I would take my furniture, where my stuff would fit, how it would change my commute and then the more supernatural ones, like how after all the time we’d been together I’d never seen Jakob eat.
I knew he drank blood but that was as far as he would discuss it. He hated talking about being a vampire to me. The few brief conversations we’d had started and ended with him denouncing vampires for being amoral, feral creatures.
I was deep in the middle of fitting my couch into his living room when Jakob walked by holding a pair of jeans that were miles too big for him. He headed toward the front door as I called out to him. “Should I ask where you got those?”
“James left them behind,” was his non-answer answer as he left the pants on the porch. Who was James? No clue. Mark, Jakob’s best friend who worked with me on occasion, might have mentioned the name once but it didn’t ring any bells. Contemplating moving in with Jakob meant I’d have more time to find out the things I didn’t know about him. There were so many of those.
The doorbell rang about fifteen minutes later and Danny, dripping wet, wearing the jeans and holding a dark brown coat that could have been a seal skin, barely stepped inside the house. His face was lined with worry in a way it didn’t get even when we were looking at the most gruesome crime scene.
“How is she?” I asked.
“Better, the ice trick worked, but not great. It might be strep throat but it could be the flu. I never realized how dangerous that could be.”
“It was enough to kill people when I was young,” Jakob said, handing over the capsule of drugs. Danny’s face looked grim at the thought and his thank you betrayed more emotion. When I opened the first of Jakob’s double doors to the outside the cold hit me. Through the small space designed to keep sunlight out of a vampire’s house I could see heavy rain and icy ground. I knew Danny’s errand was desperate but I still didn’t want to send him out in the bad weather.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” I asked my partner, but I knew the question was silly. More than anything Danny was a dad. He loved his girls and he’d walk through fire, rain, and ice to get to them. “I’ll be fine. We’ll talk about this after the storm?”
I nodded. “We’ll talk about it after Maeve’s okay.”
****
We spent the night watching The Secret of Roan Inish. Danny called a couple of hours after he left to announce he’d made it home safe and more importantly, Maeve’s fever broke. She was still a sick little girl but she’d make it through. Was there ever a chance she wouldn’t? Could a girl die of a sore throat and stuffy head in the twenty-first century? I didn’t even want to think about it.
Chapter 2
Jakob and I spe
nt most of the storm in bed. When he slept I read, when reading got boring I explored. I wandered in and out of sections that turned from house back into cave for hours, only a little afraid I’d get lost for good. The house really was huge.
It seemed when he needed space, Jakob built a room; otherwise he was content to let cave be cave. Down one hall I found a woodworking room that looked fairly recent; the floor was still stone but the wooden benches smelled green and old-fashioned hand tools didn’t show any wear.
I suspected the room had been built, or rather half built with peg board walls instead of drywall, so Jakob would have a spot to make my birthday present last year. The wonderful hand-carved wooden chest sat in his room, still waiting for something worthy of it to go inside.
There were other finds, but nothing as important. I did leave some hallways completely unexplored; there was plenty of time until my lease ended and I didn’t want to rush the fun of exploring my new place. I spent long hours on the couch day dreaming about my furniture and where it would go. On the last day of the storm Jakob caught me there, mentally fitting my bed into his bedroom, when he woke up.
“How long have you had your bed?” I asked as he sat down behind me. I leaned back, happy to rest on his thin frame. He was keeping the place warmer because his skin took on the temperature of the room. Early on in the winter I’d caught my breath when I grabbed his cold hands. After that, the temperature turned practically balmy.
“A few years? Maybe more?” he said, thinking aloud. “Ronnie is how old now?”
“He’s old,” I replied, not wanting to mention Jakob’s adopted son was older than me.
“Well he helped me carry the new mattress in when he was sixteen, so it’s that old.”
“So I take it there have been other women in that bed?” It wasn’t really a question.
Jakob was silent behind me. He really wasn’t comfortable talking about his past, which I respected, but I was trying to make a point.
“I think I’d like to bring my bed from my place when I move in.”
Jakob agreed enthusiastically, then changed the conversation to food. It was early for dinner, but he cooked when he was nervous. I didn’t know if the nerves were because I’d brought up his other loves or because I was moving in. It didn’t matter why; his cooking would taste delicious either way.
The day was dark gray and sleeting so I wanted comfort food. I convinced Jakob to make spaghetti; simple but it fit the weather. We chatted about the rest of the furniture. I knew there were other things to work out but furniture seemed like the biggest one. In all my exploring I hadn’t found a second dining room or a place to fit my living room. The easy conversation carried us through dinner. I ate while he watched. I hated it but I wasn’t willing to address the topic of his meals yet; we’d solved the issue of the bed, which could have been a disaster, and I didn’t want to press my luck. Instead I moved on to happier aspects of moving in.
“You know, when I moved in with Greg, there was this sex thing…” I twirled the last bit of pasta around my fork lazily.
“A sex thing?”
“He wanted sex all the time. I mean, all the time. It was dreadful. I had to set limits, enforce rationing.”
Jakob’s quick smile barely covered his shock. I almost never mentioned my first husband to him, and I tried never to compare the two of them out loud. “You’re afraid I’ll be the same way?”
“I’m hopeful.” I raised my eyebrow with what I hoped was a lecherous grin.
“I’ll do my best not to disappoint.” His smile widened and he came over to my side of the table. There was a long slow kiss and I realized we wouldn’t be talking about anything for a little while.
****
The storm ended late on Wednesday night, blowing itself out while I slept and Jakob worked from his home office. The newspapers reported it did a good amount of damage to homes and businesses but most people were fine. Already the editorials called for revised plans, claiming the government alarmed its citizens unnecessarily.
I tossed the paper aside; there was a reason I didn’t get one delivered to my place. Jakob probably ignored the opinion section on his way to the financial pages. I didn’t have that kind of restraint. Put the frustrating blend of ignorance and zealotry in front of me and I read it. I made a mental note to ignore the paper completely when I moved in as I pulled his car out of the driveway, cautious on the nearly icy roads.
When I moved in. And when would that be? My lease was up at the end of March, one month and a few weeks from now, not a long time to wait. Then again, I could start moving a few things over here and there, sort of move in parts. Planning the move carried me through the early morning traffic and into work. Once I got there and fixed my coffee an out of place item distracted me.
It wasn’t much, just a coffee mug was sitting on my desk. It was white with red writing, a souvenir coffee mug showing a stack of pancakes coated with syrup and Majestic Diner, Ten years! 1944 to 1954 written beneath. Who keeps a coffee mug for more than fifty years?
“This yours?” I asked Danny, holding the offending mug by its handle.
“Nope.”
“Uh-huh.” I groaned realizing who it probably belonged to. Inside a trace of blood confirmed my suspicions.
“Problem?”
“Amadeus left his filthy coffee mug on my desk―”
“His desk,” Danny corrected.
“No, my desk, the left side is mine.”
“All right, the desk you share.”
“It doesn’t matter this mug is gross.” I considered throwing it away, but settled for putting it, old blood and all, in his drawer. I wasn’t about to do his dishes.
“Leave him a note. Auster was constantly leaving banana peels in the trash. I’d have to smell them all day. A simple note and he started using the trash can in the break room.”
I made a noise that wasn’t quite a comment but indicated how I felt about the whole thing.
“None of us are psychic, Mal, leave a note.”
“Do we have something to go do?” I wasn’t going to leave a note.
“You transferred a murder case to us?”
“Right,” I seized the opportunity. “Let’s go talk to the detectives who had it first.”
We took the elevators a few floors down and I wondered how to broach the subject of what Danny was without offending him. My curiosity ate at me but after working with Danny for nine months I knew better than to be blunt. Just when I thought I had something figured out he spoke, stopping me.
“Looks like Detective Quilez, he’s a good guy.” Danny pushed the glass doors open onto a squad room that mirrored our own. Partners’ desks were stacked three deep on each side instead of two, and the early morning din crackled with curse words that didn’t have anything to do with actual curses but otherwise, just like the SIU. We found our way to a desk in the back decorated with a cheerful looking office plant.
“Detective Quilez?” Danny said trying to catch his attention.
“Gallagher, right? SIU? Figured you’d be down. Have a seat.” He swiveled in his chair to grab a manila file. Danny sat, I leaned. “Where’s Doug?”
Doug was Danny’s last partner. It didn’t end well. “Doug left the force. He got into a relationship that went bad.”
Danny was being polite, trying to end the subject but Quilez didn’t get it. “Left? Where’d he go? And what kind of relationship takes you off the force?”
“She was a succubus.”
“Oh.” The detective looked startled for a second then dropped his eyes to the folder in front of him. While a succubus could kill you, it wasn’t the worst option. The worst was what happened to Doug; the suc drained his life away a little at time, so he forgot how he liked his coffee, how to do his job, and by now, he’d probably forgotten who he was entirely.
I didn’t blame Danny for not keeping in touch with his old partner, especially since Doug liked it enough he wouldn’t press charges or leave her. Quilez finally
spoke again, “So Christine Sweeny, she’s your case now. Should I ask why?”
“Her ghost showed up in my living room,” I said without introducing myself.
Quilez gave a low whistle. “It really is another world up there isn’t it? Anyway, if the case is yours you can go check this out.” He handed me a pink phone message slip. Someone had found Cynthia Sweeny’s car. I thanked him and we headed down to the motor pool. We got there, got ourselves a car, and got on our way before I started the conversation I was desperate to have.
“So we going to talk about it?” Not the best start but at least it was one.
“Not really.”
“No?” I asked, a touch disappointed.
“Not much to say.”
“Not even a little bit how you’re supposed to be extinct?” The drive wasn’t going to be long but I suspected if I didn’t get something out of Danny about this soon I never would. My curiosity burned far too bright for me to let that happen.
“Why do I feel like I’m putting the girls to bed? It’s only five minutes, right?”
I laughed without wanting to. The girls hated going to sleep at night. All three of them firmly believed the good stuff happened after they went to bed. Declaring bed time meant being asked for five more minutes, which stretched into ten, and then requests for water or a story. Eventually the delays added up and it was an hour past bedtime before the lights were off.
“Fair enough,” I conceded. “But you don’t have to hide around me.”
“You’re right. It’s a habit. The whole thing is a habit really. Someone decided decades ago we were safer on our little island, letting the world think we didn’t exist. The old folks make it hellish for anyone who leaves or God forbid falls in love with someone who’s not our kind and…” Danny’s tone grew unnaturally sober before his voice trailed off. I didn’t need to confirm the woman he loved and the daughters he adored, wouldn’t be welcome in his ancestral home.
Blood, Dirt, and Lies Page 3